Mark, the exhaust coating has suffered a bit from stone chip damage, the tail pipes in particular are taking on tht "sandblasted" look, but otherwise it's fine. The manifolds are still perfect, so no problem with handling the heat.
Metal Mickey, I don't have a definitive weight yet although British Airways did tell me that the total weight according to them was 625KG, with the standard shipping pallet it was sitting on weighing 125KG, so a provisional estimate is somewhere aroung 500KG including a box of spare parts, a spare radiator, and 1/4 tank of fuel (2.5 imperial gallons). There is still some work to do on the car, including a corner weight set up, so I will have definitive info at that point.
I have not set out to build an ultra light car, despite the carbon interior, I have just specced it the way I wanted it. There are some items which carry a weight penalty like the SV De Dion tube and driveshafts, rear wing extensions, Freestyle ultra wide front suspension, Chassis stiffening top and bottom in the engine bay, substantial stiffening around the diff mounts, quite a few standard instruments due to my dislike of electronic pressure/temp guage systems, preffering capillary tube analog ones, even though this duplicates some functions existing in the Stack ST 700 system.
DSL, Davey Bee, Re handling, I'll let you all know, once the car is finished. The Freestyle inboard front suspension has yet to be fitted due to time constraints, and the requirement to engineer the steering system around the suspension. It currently runs directly forward horizontally, through a 90 degree bevel gear and striaght down to the rack, which does not permit fiiting the inboard kit, which I feel is quite important bearing in mind the "super wide" front track which makes the standard inclinded suspension even less effective.
Re Curborough, I know that Russell has not paid enough attention to proper set up of the car, even to the point of running quite a high tyre pressure on the day, and if I'm not mistaken, Dave Jackson had very little time in the car prior to the event. That's a shame because the car is capable of much more, if understandable since they have been concentrating on engine and installation development.
Dave, both Russell and Chris agree that my car feels much better than the SV on the road, and I can assure you that it gets the power down very well, even at full throttle, at least on the roads in the USA which are not the best in the world by a long way. Rod Thonger was a passenger up highway one, I'm sure he would agree, as would Chris Beardshaw and one or two others who witnessed a fast getaway on a minor, poor quality back road somwhere in the middle of nowhere. Next summer when it's back in the UK and finished you are welcome to a test drive for the sake of comparison.
Maybe this has something to do with the very wide rear track (2" wider than an SV) with the new 245 Cr 500's and the fact that I did not even attempt to spec the spring rates and dampers, leaving that to Gary May. Thanks Gary, great job!
Now I'm not suggesting in any way that my car is the ultimate, and I certainly don't want to get into a pi$$ing contest with anybody, I'm sure for instance that there are plenty of car/driver combimations around here that could beat me in any form of competion, so lets not get into that, but if anybody want's to make sensible comments or ask questions please feel free.
I would add that posts on this thread so far have been entirely constructive, and it's one of the best for some time, very interesting.
Edited by - Mike Biddle on 5 Nov 2005 10:51:11